Fantastic Voyage

When "Fantastic Voyage" came out on the big screen in 1966 starring Raquel Welch, it was one of the best pure Sci Fi releases to date and really took the genre by storm. When the cartoons came out two years later they also were popular. For those of us who remember those Saturdays flipping channels between the three networks looking for the right cartoon for that morning's worth of TV, Fantastic Voyage was a always worth at least a look even if you'd seen it before. It had quality voices like Jane Webb, who was more famous for her Betty/Veronica/Sabrina characters on the "Archies" related shows, and Ted Knight, best known for his hilarious work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

It also had decent animation and the effect of the ship shrinking out of sight never failed to enthrall as it was supposed to do. There was always a hint of science and that part appealed to the children of the atomic age in addition to the familiar voices. The idea of traveling around in a flying ship was a common theme then on TV with Lost In Space, Star Trek, and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea all having some sort of flying vehicles you could zip around in and go wherever you wanted to. But the ship on Fantastic Voyage was just that much cooler having been patterned after those shows' ships but with a sleeker design. This made the show stand out over others at the time and gave them a faithful following for years after it was cancelled. Definitely worth a look if any reruns remain.

Cartoon about a miniature craft/submarine doing science fiction adventures.

Good voice artists are vital to a cartoon and this one had one of the best in the business: Marvin Miller (once Robby The Robot) as the voice of the darkly lite boss. At the start of each adventure he got you in the mood for what was to come with his outstanding delivery of lines!

And when that big ship/submarine started to shrink and go places we sort of felt like we were in some animated Irwin Allen world complete with spacey sound effects used in Lost In Space (1965) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964).

But let us not get too carried away here, not all the episodes of this short lived series were good, but enough of them were...to make this one of the best old school cartoons ever!

And finally, to add to the list of interesting things to listen to, great music cues playing over these fantastic voyages.

Fantastic Voyage is cartoon based loosely on the 1966 film of the same name. In it, the Combined Miniature Defense Force selects four people for one mission: to combat the unseen, unexpected threats to freedom. Shrinking down and piloting the Voyager, the team, consisting of Commander Johnathan Kidd, mystic Guru, biologist Erica Lane, and scientist Bubsy Birdwell, must stop these evils causing the problems, and they have twelve hours to do so, as after that time, they will return to normal size.

So yes, it does have some differences from the film (mainly the time limit and the CMDF acronym meaning something different). As this was made by Filmation, there will be some reused animation and some errors meant to save money (but then again, it worked for Filmation, as it helped them stay open until the late 1980's). However, despite this, the show has some interesting stories and some good villains.

The interesting aspect of the Fantastic Voyage animated series is it's history....originally 20th Century-Fox was considering doing a live TV series based on the film. Veteran TV writers William Reed Woodfield and Allan Balter ('Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea', 'Lost in Space', 'Mission Impossible') came up with the series version in 1967, but the series idea was shelved, partially due to the untimely death of writer Balter in a plane crash.

20th Century-Fox had given the rights to another of their sci-fi action-adventure films, 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' to Filmation the previous year and was warmly received. So Fox decided to go with the less expensive route of animation rather than live-action with the added expensive of model work and set building (ala Land of the Giants).

In is also interesting to note that Filmation later did a special animated version of 'Lost in Space'....rumors abounded in the mid-70's that if the LIS cartoon had been picked up by the ABC network, then Filmation was poised to do animated versions of the other Iriwn Allen series, 'Time Tunnel', 'Land of the Giants', and 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'.

I cannot for the life of me remember any of the plots now (I was, 9?), but that image dominates of the ship shrinking on that rotating disk of colored lights like a giant wheel-of-fortune, with the three large emitters pointing down, blazing away atop arcing pylons rising up, out and back down toward the wheel. And the shrinking music theme cue with a powerful but languid tone--*da-dum-da deeeeeeeeee dow! da-dum-da deeeeeeeeee DOW!*--sorta a twist on the Perry Mason opening riff. I can still see Buzby Birdwell (what kid knew that takeoff name then?) sitting up in the little bubbled cockpit on top to fly it ... and Ted Knight's announcer voice as the Narrator intoning: *The C-M-D-F ...Combined Miniature Defense Force!* I had a set of Mattels TogÕl blocks and often made the Voyager. Cool ship before I ever knew the Enterprise.